An international study found that obesity increases the risk of dying of COVID-19 by 48%, and can possibly lessen the effectiveness of vaccines against the coronavirus, The Guardian reported.
The study, which was carried out by the University of North Carolina (UNC), Saudi Health Council, and the World Bank, also found that obesity increased the risk of coronavirus patients being hospitalized by 113% and the risk of being admitted to intensive care by 74%.
Obesity not only causes metabolic changes such as insulin resistance, which increases the body’s challenge in fighting off the coronavirus, but it also leads to other health conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.
“Individuals with obesity are also more likely to experience physical ailments that make fighting this disease harder, such as sleep apnea, which increases pulmonary hypertension, or a body mass index that increases difficulties in a hospital setting with intubation,” said the study’s co-author, Prof. Melinda Beck.
Prof. Barry Popkin of the UNC’s Gillings Global School of Public Health, who led the study, said the study’s findings shocked him.
“That’s a pretty big effect for me,” he said. “It is a 50% increase essentially. That’s a pretty high scary number. All of it is actually, much higher than I ever expected.”
To make the bad news even worse, the study’s authors added that a coronavirus vaccine will likely not be as effective for obese patients compared to others.
“We know a COVID-19 vaccine will have a positive effect on obese people, but we suspect from all our knowledge from tests on the SARS vaccine and the flu vaccine it will have a diminished benefit compared to the others,” Popkin said.
Following a long campaign this year in the wake of their research on the effectiveness of vaccines in obese people, the study’s authors convinced the US Centers for Disease Control that standard flu vaccines are not sufficient for obese people.
“We now have a stronger flu vaccine for overweight people,” Popkin said.
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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5 Responses
That’s Professor Bopkin’s view! Senator Biden claims a recent study shows that 100% of people who died from Covid-19 were alive before succumbing to this dreadful disease!
Great, you just scared half of Klal Yisroel. Let’s have faith in Hashem!
Obese people are more likely to die from anything compared to people in recommended weight range. Is this 50% different than, say, obese people dying from cancer, heart attacks, Parkinson’s, acute gingivitis?
This contradicts the CDC’s latest report. As many web sites have emphasized, only 6% of deaths attributed in part to the Wuhan virus had no co-morbidities. Less reported is that only 3.5% were co-morbid with obesity. So obesity is not a major factor.
Obese people are probably 50% more likely to suffer from a long list of ailments!